Two armed robberies hit county

Goldsboro and Wayne County lawmen captured two suspects within hours of armed robberies Sunday and Monday nights.

A Virginia man faces charges for allegedly robbing a Holiday Inn Express hotel clerk at gunpoint late Sunday, making off with a fist full of cash.

And Wayne County authorities arrested a teenager Monday night in connection with the robbery of Glenn's Country Store a few hours earlier.

Solomon Louis Brooks, 50, of Mason Church Road, South Boston, Va., was arrested just minutes after the hotel robbery on Sunday.

The robber had walked into the hotel, approached a male hotel clerk with a sawed off shotgun and demanded money. Goldsboro police said the suspect bolted through the northside lobby door after stealing $661 and left in an unknown direction of travel.

"Minutes later Goldsboro officers found a 2006 Chrysler Pacifica parked near the intersection of A and Carolina streets," according to a press release issued by the Police Department. "The vehicle had been reported stolen out of the Charlotte/Mecklenburg area."

Police searched the vehicle and found a sawed off shotgun between the two front seats. Brooks was apprehended soon after. Police searched him and said they found several Xanex tablets, according to the report.

The hotel clerk identified Brooks as the one who robbed him.

Brooks faces a number of charges, including armed robbery, possession of a weapon of mass destruction, possession of a stolen vehicle, possession of a firearm by a convicted felon, possession of Schedule III drugs and possession of drug paraphernalia.

He was being held in the Wayne County Jail on a $80,000 bond.

Meanwhile, deputies with the Wayne County Sheriff's Department arrested Tayviar Shantwan King, 16, of 204 Hideaway Circle in Dudley in connection with the robbery of the store.

The store on Fox Drive was robbed about 8 p.m., when a black man wearing a bandana over his face entered, leaped over the counter and grabbed a pistol from under it. When he did, his bandanda slipped and a clerk said she recognized him as having been in the store previously.

Deputies using dogs tracked the suspect to King's home. He was found about 10 p.m. at a neighbor's home and taken into custody. The firearm and the stolen money were recovered.

King was charged with robbery with a dangerous weapon and larceny of a firearm. He was being held in the Wayne County Jail under $40,000 secured bond.